Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, has predicted that artificial intelligence will lead to labour shortages rather than the mass replacement of human workers, according to a report by Reuters.
Bezos made the statement while pushing back against widespread fears about AI-driven job losses during an appearance at the VivaTech technology conference in Paris on Wednesday.
The billionaire business magnate made the remarks while discussing his broader portfolio of technology ventures, including space company Blue Origin and his new AI startup Prometheus, which is focused on accelerating physical manufacturing.
His comments come as concern over AI’s impact on employment continues to grow globally.
What he is saying
According to Reuters, Bezos directly rejected the view, held by many in the technology industry, that AI poses an existential threat to human employment.
- “I know there’s a lot of concern that many people have, including many smart people, that AI is going to make humans redundant and so on. I totally disagree with this point of view. And I think, in fact, AI is going to create a labor shortage,” he said.
- He argued that people have “endless” things to do, and that humanity’s productivity is currently constrained by barriers that AI will help lower rather than eliminate the need for human labour altogether.
On space exploration, Bezos said one of its long-term goals is to relocate polluting industries off Earth entirely, framing it as part of a broader environmental vision tied to his space ambitions.
- “If space travel gets reliable enough and inexpensive enough, and we can get materials from asteroids and near-Earth objects and the moon, then this garden planet can be returned to its pre-Industrial Revolution state,” he said.
More insights
Blue Origin CEO David Limp, who appeared alongside Bezos at the conference, said reconstruction of the company’s launch pad for its New Glenn rockets has begun in Florida, following an explosion that damaged the facility in May.
- Blue Origin is positioning itself to compete directly with Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the rocket launch market, a rivalry that places the world’s wealthiest individuals in direct competition for dominance in commercial space infrastructure.
What you should know
In May, Nairametrics reported that experts challenged warnings by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei that artificial intelligence could replace a significant share of entry-level white-collar jobs within the next one to five years.
Amodei had argued that AI capabilities are advancing faster than many people, businesses, and policymakers realize, raising concerns about the potential impact on employment.
According to him, tasks traditionally assigned to junior employees, such as document summarization, idea generation, and financial reporting, are increasingly being automated by AI systems.
However, several experts pushed back on those predictions, arguing that while AI is likely to reshape the nature of many jobs, widespread replacement of entry-level workers may be less immediate and more complex than suggested.
